AbeBooks book blog

AbeBooks’ most expensive sales of 2008

With 2008 coming to a close, we have just published AbeBooks’ most expensive sales of the year. Rather than just listing the 10 most pricey sales like we usually we do, this year we have also recorded some of the expensive sales in certain genres such as photography, poetry, children’s books and science fiction/fantasy. The list makes interesting reading and once again shows what the big spenders are willing to spend big on.

Some of the sales jump out as being remarkable. For example, a full set of The Edge Chronicles by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell sold for $7,000. That’s nine books but the first one was only published in 2001. These children’s fantasy books became collectible very quickly – almost Harry Potter-like perhaps.

I love the fact that we sold two first editions of Les Americans by Robert Frank in 2008 – 50 years after this legendary photography book was published. They went for $4,357 and $3,164 respectively.

George Bernard Shaw’s typewriter also sold for a cool $7,979 – that’s probably my favourite big ticket item of the year. A remarkable piece of cold, hard metal from our literary past.